Elevating the brand to align with the highly respected leaders in security and implementing a framework and resources for contribution. This project was a great trust builder in design thinking and design operations.
While Trail of Bits was recognized as an industry leader in software security, their branding and corporate website was not representative of their top tier services. Content was stagnant and there was a high barrier to contribution. This was an opportunity to engage the newly established product team and showcase design capabilities.
The project began with an inventory the current site pages and social media accounts. Screen captures were collected and we conducted a thorough user UX/UI audit. Comments were added to the screen captures to see feedback in context, and were categorized by theme in a summary document for leadership. Providing an easily digestible overview with supporting examples and design principles quickly garnered full support for the effort.
With stakeholders vested in resolving the identified shortcomings, interviews to learn about current site content management began. We quickly learned that fresh insights were frequently shared in blog posts, but the corporate site content was stagnant. The site also under represented the breadth of product and service offerings available. Further digging revealed the blog was a different system and easily accessed, whereas the site was managed elsewhere and had very limited access and capabilities for contribution.
Another key insight was the different persona types that visit our site to learn about the company. This lead to a dedicated effort to define the various personas, their key goal, and ensure the answers to their questions are easily answered. This informed the content plan as we mapped out the information architecture.
Carefully crafted inverview questions for leadership helped to clearly define the brand attributes and voice and tone that should be represented in imagery and content. These were documented, shared, and agreed upon as our direction. A design spike into colors, fonts, imagery, and stylization was shared to garner further buy-in on direction. It honored key elements of the past, while bringing it into cohesion and represented the desired brand attributes visually.
In order to craft content for the product and service devisions, subject matter experts were identified for each, and we conducted interviews alongside the copywriter to best understand what is most important to feature. We focused on answering persona questions and providing content that would resonate with their goals.
In tandem with this effort, testing began on viable alternatives for website management that would bring the blog and site content within one tool, and allow for various contributors and permission levels. Webflow quickly became a frontrunner as it ticked a lot of boxes and was garnering a lot of praise in the industry. We tested it's capabilities for our iVerify product site, knowing it was both an overdue and far smaller effort.
Clarity provided by the content plan and brand mood boards allowed wireframes and subsequently mock ups to come together quickly. Seeing rapid progress and the level of polish and cohesion possible further propelled excitement in the effort and approvals came quickly, including moving over to Webflow for site management.
At this point our team showcased the process to the company at large, including a bit about the contribution process. This served to feature how design thinking can be leveraged in other projects, and get others interested in being content authors.
As pages were approved, we developed them in Webflow. We set up content zones for contributors and default styles, and a library of assets to jumpstart contributing authors. Thorough documentation was created to step through Webflow contributions, content guidelines, and asset resources. This meant that it could be a largely self serve process to update site content. Initial training walkthroughs and even screen capture videos for posterity were created as further aids to jump-start team contributions.
Soon we were able to switch over to the new site and everyone was thrilled at the result. There was pride in our website, and it represented the caliber of our talent and services. Resolutions to the UX/UI audit created a much better site by every measure. Contributions to the site increased, stayed fresh, and traffic was up as well. Products and services were appropriately represented and answered the key questions of our personas.
